my new Gale
by izfan26
Summary: Katniss is out hunting alone, Gale is gone, and takes off after some blue hedgehog... guess who it is! possible SonicxKatniss in later chapters. rated for language.
1. Chapter 1: is that a Mutt?

Regular HG POV:

A regular day of hunting for me. I haven't caught anything much, just a few squirrels. Maybe everything's in hibernation. Then, there's a sudden flash of blue. "Some kind of hedgehog, maybe." I mutter. I know what kind it is. A muttation. A mutt. How else would it be such a shade of blue? I load my bow, but it's running too fast for me to aim. I charge after it. My bow is still loaded, and the creature jumps over a cavern, landing with a horrible _crunch!_ On its left leg.

"_**ARGH! OH SWEET CHAOS, MY LEG!**_" It screeched.

Its voice sounded eerily human. Not like the mutts from the arena, all they could do was bark, but this one had a voice.

And it sounded about sixteen.

I load an arrow and aim in it's-I guess I should call it "He" because the voice is masculine- direction. Then, it holds up a gloved hand and yells, "whoa! It's cool! Don't shoot!"

I freeze. I tie an arrow with a string I keep in my pocket, and shoot it into the tree he's resting on. I then tie it to a tree on my side of the cavern and use my bow to zip line across.

Halfway across, he calls, "what's your name?"

"Katniss." I say over the rush of water.

"Can't-Kiss?! Who names their kid Can't-Kiss?!"

"Katniss," I say louder as I land on his side. "my name is Katniss. And I had it in my mind to shoot you. I kill anything out here and a mutt like you-"

"I'm not a mutt! I'm not even a _dog_ in general! My name is Sonic. Sonic the- ow! - hedgehog." He's trying in vain to stand. "well, you can see I wouldn't be much good to kill." Then, he starts to imitate a woman's gruff voice: "_bet half the carcass would be too rotten even for sausage!_"

Now, how does he know Rooba's exact words about Lady? He wasn't in the Hob, I'd remember. Slowly it dawns on me. He's doing an impression of Rooba. It's really good, too. I smile. It transforms me from someone lethal to a girl you wish you knew. "come on, I'll take you back with me.

He starts to move backwards. "I can trust you?

"yes." Why shouldn't he?

"are you sure?"

"do you want to get home or not?"

He sighs, but gives me his arm. I gently pull him to his feet-

Forgetting his effing injury.

"_**AIEE! DEAR CHAOS, KILL ME!**_" he turns to me, an irked glint in his green eyes. "really… I mean kill me. My leg hurts like crap, and my dignity just flew out the window. Don't give me that look; I'm being rescued by a girl. If I'm going to die, an arrow through my throat would be quicker."

"Stop it," I say firmly, "you are NOT going to die."

"says who?" he asks mournfully.

"says me."

"dude, I barely know you!"

I ignored him. "hold on," I grab my bow, and we fly back across. I set him gently on a rock, reel in my arrow, and stuff the string back in my pocket. "ready to get back?"

We spend about an hour walking- or should I say limping and stumbling- back to my house, before I just say, "let me carry you."

"no." he says simply.

"it'd be a lot easier."

"I have my pride."

"I thought that it flew out the window." Two could play at this game.

Just like twenty-four can play at the Hunger games… and only one wins… all the others get murdered in horrible, slow, painful ways…

"…hey, did you hear me?" Sonics' voice pulls me out of my memories. "I said you can carry me if you want." I lift him- he's surprisingly light- and keep walking. "what's your thing about pride?"

He's silent then says slowly, "ever since my Mom died, I'm just used to proving myself, you know? I just didn't trust my Dad anymore. All he did was sleep. I had to look out for myself. I once asked him why he wouldn't move. Then, he started to slap me," he does another imitation, like the first only this time of his Dad, "_you know damn well why I don't move anymore useless! Now stop bugging me!_ I didn't have a choice…" he falls silent.

"about what?" I press.

"I ran away."

Before we know it, we're at my house in the Victor Village. I say a silent "thank you" to Snow for leaving it standing. I take the wounded Hedgehog inside, and call out for Peeta.

Sonic cocks his ears. "Pita? You have a boyfriend named Pita?"

_**A.N: HEY, GUYS. SHOULD I CONTINUE MY STORY? ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR SONIC'S SNARKY COMEBACKS? I'M NEW TO THE WORLD OF SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, SO LET ME KNOW WHAT I DID WRONG! R&R!**_

_**YES, THE PEETA = PITA COMMENT HAD TO BE DONE.**_


	2. Chapter 2: shut up, Peety-Pookums

Peeta walks into the room, and gets a good look at Gale's, I mean Sonic's leg. "Are we gonna chop off his leg, too?

"What?!" demands Sonic, trying to scramble from my arms. I hold fast and stroke his blue fur gently. "Peeta's just kidding." I glare at Peeta, "_aren't _you, Honey?"

"No, I'm not, sweetheart." Says Peeta, mimicking my sweet tone. He rolls up his pant leg, and shows his artificial leg to Sonic. "She used a tourniquet on me. But, it was that or die, huh, buddy?"

"Oh, Peety- Pookums?" I sing.

"Yes, Kitty-cat?" Peeta replies.

"Shut up, please." I lay Sonic on a white-clothed table. "I wish we had my mother, or Prim, but-"

"Who's Prim?" Sonic interrupted.

"My little sister. She…" I swallow. "…died in a fire."

"Oh, sorry." Says Sonic, gingerly touching his badly bent leg.

"Right. Like I was saying, I'm good enough with broken bones. You just need to relax and stay still. Got it?"

Sonic nods and I get to work. The wound is much worse than he'd let on. I won't describe the bend, but I'm sure if he tried to walk on it, he'd either scream or we'd be treated to more of his homemade profanity. I wish Peeta would quit talking to him. He keeps saying things like "you're doing very well. The last guy died within a minute. He was a good meal." And "last time she mixed up the poison with the pain killers. I wonder if she did this time."

"You're not funny!" cries Sonic.

"Yes, I am." Says Peeta stupidly.

I send Peeta into the meadow to find some leaves, giving him the picture of them. "What are the leaves for?" asks the Hedgehog.

"For getting rid of Peeta." I explain calmly.

Sonic sighs and winces as I strap his leg to a splint. "It all comes from having a boyfriend named Pita, I suppose. I wouldn't know, I've never had a boyfriend."

I can't help being reminded of Gale. I tell him about Gale, and how we always used to go into the woods together, and his nickname for me, Catnip, and about how they even sound something alike. "He always used to go with me into the woods to hunt. A couple times, we even brought down deer."

"But he wasn't with you this time." Sonic reminds me.

"But when he can, he's with me.

"But he _wasn't with you this time_." Says my Hedgehog louder. "Where is he?"

I sigh. "He went to district two." I realize he doesn't know what I'm talking about. "There are thirteen districts, not counting the Capitol, which was brought down last summer. We had to destroy it, and use what we could salvage from the wreckage.

"Why'd you destroy it?"

I sigh. "That's a story for another day. But, how'd you get here?"

He presses a hand onto his forehead. "I… I can't remember. This last week's kind of a blur." I notice his leg and have a shock of surprise. "Yes, you were fixing it on autopilot. It was fascinating to watch."

Peeta bounds back into the room. "I found the leaves! Is he dead yet? No? Well, he will be. Last time she fixed my leg, I got blood poisoning! She knocked me out to get the meds I needed. And then-"

"Peety-pookums?" says Sonic, mimicking my tones.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"OK."


	3. Chapter 3: stupid golden wasps

I'm being lifted into Katniss's orange backpack. "Why am I going with you again?" I ask for about the third time.

"Peeta's too loud," she says impatiently. "He'll scare way all the game!" we march out the door, me on her back, her on the ground.

Ugh… forget water, I think I just developed a fear of_ heights._

Anyway, Kat has only just shot a couple deer and told me about some chick named "Wire" or something who only said "tik tok." Heh. Ke$ha reference.

Then, I hear humming noise above our heads. I look up, and noticed a wasp's nest. They look really angry… and gold… ok, not the point. The point is, I tap Katniss on the shoulder and murmur, "wasps… real big… real mad… real _golden_… wasps…" she looks up, and freezes.

"Ok, here's e the plan" I hiss in her ear, "you drop the bag, I distract them, and you run like hell."

"No, I'm not leaving you here at their mercy." She snarls.

"Yes," I cut the bag free. "You," I throw her as hard as I can, "_**ARE!**_" using he axe out the backpack, I chop the branch and throw it into the lake. Aw, crap, I just made it madder.

So, what do I do?

I do what any world hero would do.

I run like hell.

Something hurts me on the back of my arm. I pass Katniss and am just outside the fence when I start to get dizzy. The trees splash as oceans round my feet, and purple fish start mooing at me. Most of them want to kill me. The rest want food.

Katniss bursts out of the water, rainbow and sparkly. She scoops me up, and we run through writhing orange pools of maggots. I think we go into the house, because a door slams shut behind us. She rips something out of my arm. Peeta is purple, and he's chewing on something. "What happened?" he demands. I sort of tune out the rest of the words, but something gooey is being pressed onto my arm. Kat gives me a shot of something and I black out.

! #$%^&*()_+! #$%^&*()_+! #$%^&*()_+! #$%^&*()_+! #$%^&*()_+! #$%^&*()_+1234567890

_**Several tracker-jacker venom induced nightmares later…**_

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where they strung up a man they say murdered three_

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it seem_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

The sweet voice singing the melody mixed with the scent of baking bread lulls me gently to consciousness. I truthfully try to fight it, so desperate am I to return to blissful black unconsciousness.

The singer is insistent though.

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where the dead man called out for his love to flee._

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would it seem_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

My head is on Katniss's lap. She is stroking my quills, and singing. _I didn't know you could sing. _I think blurrily. Her voice would make any bird stop to listen. Maybe the song's about some dude trying to get his girlfriend to meet up with him secretly at midnight. Odd meeting place, a place where a guy was executed for murder. No matter. She moves to the next verse.

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where I told you to run so we'd both be free._

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it seem_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

I open my eyes, and she notices for the first time I'm awake. She turns redder than Tails' fur. "Sorry," she mutters.

"Don't be," I put her hand on my forehead. "I like it. Reminds me of my mom."

"Want me to stop singing?" she asks. "I know lots of people don't like it-"

"No, no," I insist. "Finish the song."

"OK," she starts on the final Stanza of a song I have dubbed "are you, are you."

_Are you, are you,_

_Coming to the tree_

_Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me._

_Strange things did happen here,_

_No stranger would t seem_

_If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree._

Peeta walks over to us, three loaves of perfect looking bread. It feels nice, even though I am a bit sore from being knocked out for…

"How long as I out?" I ask Katniss.

"About six hours." She tells me, slicing bread, and spreading some butter on it. She stokes my quills again and gets me to eat some bread and take a swallow of water.

Then, right there, in front of her boyfriend named after a piece of bread with pockets, she kisses my nose.

Not bad for six hours work.

_**A.N;**_

_**NO REVIEWS? 'MON, GUYS! I AIN'T GONNA GIVE UP YA KNOW! NOT THINKIN G ABOUT IT WON'T STOOOOP MEEEEEE!**_


	4. Chapter 4: moms

Sonic's POV

The tracker-jacker venom isn't done with me yet. It sends me one last nightmare. The night my mom died.

I don't remember much. I just know what I found in my research. I knew that dwelling on who they were wouldn't change anything. Mom would still be dead. Dad was probably still moping over it. But still, those names I found were all I had. David Boom. Maria Boom. I couldn't stop obsessing over them.

But anyway, Mom was about six months pregnant with me when she was diagnosed with the Deadly Disease. They asked her if she wanted to abort her pregnancy. She told them she didn't. They reminded her her chances of living would increase if her body didn't have to support a baby and herself. She said she didn't care.

Nine months later, I came howling into this world. Dad was always putting the baby aside so Mom could be taken care of. I don't remember a lot of her. Vague memories of her smile. A woman's voice singing a lullaby. A few years back, I found a picture of her before she was sick, before she was pregnant, just after she'd married Dad. She was a lavender hedgehog, long, dark purple quills, emerald eyes. In the picture her quills were tied back behind her head in a yellow silk ribbon. She's on a beach, wearing white sandals.

OK, OK, hold your skittish ponies, I'll tell you about my nightmare in a minute! You had to hear that, and you have to hear this too, before you really understand. You need to know, when you get the disease, as soon as you die, you come back. Don't get your hopes up, I mean in that horrible mockery of life called living death. And if you don't sever the cerebral cortex, they do what any zombie does.

OK, HERE'S MY FRIGGIN' NIGHTMARE! Geez… you're just like Mario.

Anyway,

_Mom is lying on the couch, and I'm sitting on her chest. She's gripping my hand. Her head is tied up in a green bandana and what used to be olive skin is white as paper. "Mommy?" I whimper._

"_Mommy's going to be fine, sweetie." She gasps, her lungs full of pus, calluses, and Chaos knows what else. "But I'm going to go to sleep soon, and I need to ask you to do something when I do. OK?"_

"_Yes, Mommy."_

"_That's my baby. Go upstairs, and get the silver pusher in my jewelry box. Come back right after you do."_

_I run upstairs and grab the silver box on Mom's white beaurau. Opening it, I discover among the bracelets, necklaces, earrings and broaches, a silver piece of wire. Flat on one end for pushing, sharp on the other for piercing. An object I now know is called a Sliver. Before the disease, its main function was to pierce ears and such. Now, it was to push into the base of the neck to quiet a zombie._

_I race back downstairs. "I got it. What next?"_

"_Next I need you to get the rope from the garage and tie mommy up nice and tight."_

_Asking a three-year-old to do this kind of thing might not have happened a long time ago. Now, if you were a half hour away from death, it was necessary if you were alone with your child, you needed to ask them to get ready if you didn't want to eat them._

_Once Mom was tied to the best of my three-year-old abilities, Mom made me get a gun. Under most circumstances, making a little kid get a gun and shoot his mom in the head wasn't a good idea. But, as established, life was different now._

_For the next half hour, Mom and I sit together. She sings me her homemade lullaby, and I, having no idea what's happening (I just know something scary is happening to Mommy) believe her when she says everything will be all right._

_Her last words are, "always remember, Mommy's proud of you. You're going to do great things when you grow up. But I need you to promise that every time you save someone, to remember me." I nodded. "I love you. You'll always be my baby. Forgive me."_

"_No, Mommy! Don't leave me! I'll be good, promise! You can't-"_

"_No more." She says sternly. "Promise Mommy?"_

_I swallow hard and say, "I-I promise, Mommy."_

"_You'll always be my baby." She repeats. Her eyes are a million miles away. "Always…"_

_She doesn't speak again. And this, in my opinion, is the worst part of the nightmare. Only matched by what happens next._

_Mon sits up, breaking clean through the knots, and when she sniffs the air, groans and turns directly toward me. I shriek as she reaches out and her purple nails scratch at the air. I jump on her shoulders and she scratches blindly at me as I stand up. She's gnashing her teeth and moaning loudly._

_Then I plunge the sliver into her neck, and she stiffens, gives one final moan and falls forward, my weight breaking her thin neck(she wasn't able to eat during her last month.)._

_Then she comes back to life. Not in the amazing, miracle way I wish she would, but she looks at me and says, "This is your entire fault." _

_I ump up. Dad's there now, and he's looking at me with horror, distaste, disgust, and disappointment. He says, "Sonic… Kiddo… how could you? You-" he motions to Mom's body "-you killed her. She's dead."_

_Their disappointed voices echo over and over again in my head. "It's all your fault, it's all your fault. You killed your mother, you killed your own mother. You're a murderer, Sonic. A murderer._

_But what's different about this dream is that Dad keep getting angrier and angrier. Finally, he flips out, and tries to kill me with a hammer. Mom's mouth doesn't move, but I heard her laughing, chanting, "You're a killer. Kill the killer. Die, monster, die."_

_I didn't kill you. You were already dying._

_Dad, no. stop. Please._

_Do I say the words? Or do I only think them?_

I wake up gasping and sobbing. Their voices are still haunting me. I can't do what I always do after the nightmare. Remind myself that it happened just that way, if not a bit differently. That dwelling on nightmares about it wouldn't fix anything. But tonight I cut myself some slack. I wonder why the points brought up by the small, wise part of me brings up never came to me before.

I could've saved her! I could've-

_What? What could you have done? You were a toddler. You didn't have the cure. You didn't know what the deadly disease was._

I acted like a child! I didn't even have the guts to shoot her! I had to act like a child about it and used the goddamn sliver!

_Sonic, stop. You acted like a child because you _were _a child._

It was thirteen years ago!

_That doesn't make it less horrible._

Why can't I let it go?

_Maybe because you believe them? If you don't know, I don't know, dude._

I'm about to argue some more, but I hear something from upstairs. A high-pitched scream of"_**NONONONO! DADDY! FINNICK! PRIM! RUN! NO! LET ME GO! NOOOOOOOO!"**_ Then a gasp, and Katniss runs downstairs sobbing hard.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"S-sorry I w-wo-woke you up. J-j-just a b-b-bad dream."

I pat the spot next to me. "What was your nightmare about?"

She coughs, swallows hard, and begins. "Well, I was eleven years old, and my dad was taking me and my sister down to the mines. I told him what would happen, but- but he just-just laughed and he-he said, 'you don't know anything. You're just a little girl with a pointy stick.'" She started crying again, harder than before. "I begged him not to take us down there, Sonic! But he and Prim just laughed and they dragged me by my arms down into the mines. And the mining crew was everyone I knew who died. Even Rue, and she was just twelve. They looked just like their bodies, Sonic! Finnick's head was hanging by a thread! Glimmer was puffy from tracker-jacker stings! Cato was a bloody mess and the district nine boy's mutt was still on his elbow! Rue still had that damned spear in her belly! And if that wasn't the worst part, the people who died in the bombing still looked like themselves, all pale and coated with ash!"

"And I kept begging them to get out! But they just kept working, and when I tried to run, Cato and Mayor Undersee grabbed me and Daddy said, 'where do you think you're going? You know it's safe with me, right?' and right in front of me, Prim giggled and she set off the explosion. Bodies were flying everywhere, Sonic, and I was all alone in a giant, smoldering pit. And then my mother looked at me and she said- she said-" Katniss is sobbing too hard to finish.

Holding her, I stroke her braid and ask, "what'd she say, Katniss?"

Gasping for breath, she whispers into my shoulder, "She said… she said 'you'll never be your father. You killed him. You killed thousands of people. And you have the nerve to call yourself a hero.'"

Here she bursts into tears again. I silently tell Peeta that when he gets back from visiting Kat's mom, I'm going to kill him. Buttercup joins us and settles on her lap.

I register a voice singing. Then with a thrill of surprise, I realize it's me. And I'm singing the lullaby Mom sang when she died.

_When the sun has grown dark_

_And the clouds turn black,_

_I'll always be here, just come back._

_I know you want to be brave,_

_But if you're ever scared,_

_Just look over your shoulder._

_And I'll be right there._

_If one day I leave,_

_And you need me again,_

_Remember my dearest,_

_I'm right 'round the bend._

_You may ask me some day_

_Why I do what I do._

_My answer is simply_

_Because I love you._

Katniss's wails quiet down to sniffles, then finally disappear altogether. Wiping her eyes, she says, "Maybe I got stung and didn't notice."

"Yeah," I joke. "You _are _slower than a chao."

"Well, you aren't exactly Mr. Speedy at the moment. They should make a prequel about you called _The Hobbler_."

"I could probably be out of there faster than you could say 'chaos control,' if it weren't for my leg."

She giggles, and buttercup nudges her hand that's on his nose. "mrow." He grumbles.

"You be nice." I scold. When Kat looks at me funny, I say "I speak animal."

We spend the rest of the night talking. I tell her I don't have a mom. She tells me it's not all it's cracked up to be. When Peeta comes home and starts to tell about his parental experience, neither of us tells him to "shut up, Peety-Pookums."

_**A.N. THANKS TO MY REVIEWERS FOR GIVING ME NEW IDEAS ON WHAT TO HAVE SONIC SAY. I'M GIVING A SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO **__**SpiritofSilverWater**__**. THANKS FOR THE SNARKY COMEBACKS. YOU RULE, MAN. OR GIRL. WHATEVER.**_

_**BYEE!**_


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